WHEN I WAS IN AMERICA…

In the good old days, while I was growing up in the rural areas of Kuttanad near Kottayam, some priests who were lucky enough to visit United States would start their homilies or speeches with the expression “When I was in America…” Ditto for that exclusive club of laymen who felt their locus standi among their peers would improve with an anecdotal description of their American experiences at the start of every conversation. Now-a-days, when a tenth of Kerala’s population is in the U.S. at any given time, and at least a fifth has visited the country at one time or another, the expression ‘When I was in America…’ does not hold any surprises for the listeners.

I spent almost six months in U.S. from June to December 2007.This was my third visit to that country and the longest. My wife and I were there to assist with the birth of our second grand daughter Anusha or Anu as we affectionately call her. We slightly shuffled the letters of her big sister’s name Ashna, added the letter ‘u’ and presto, we have Anusha.

My daughter stays at Ashburn. It is an extremely quiet place about 50 km from the Washington D.C., the U.S. capital. It will take about 30 minutes’ drive by car on a Saturday afternoon to drop into the White House to say ‘hello’ to Barack Obama. During peak hours it is more like 45 min to 1 hour on the 12-lane highway. With the sun setting at around 9 pm in summer, there is a lot of daylight for a quick drive to Washington D.C. to visit one of the numerous museums and other tourist attractions.

In U.S. cars stay on the right. Inexpensive petrol, multiple lanes on highways and clear road signs make driving a pleasure. If you can invest around $250 on a global positioning system (GPS), even I, who tends to get lost all the time, can drive around without the aid of road maps as this device very cleverly prompts what is to be done well in advance. Drivers hardly use the hooter, a few not even aware that there is such a device. (I am not joking!) There is such competition to sell cars that buyers, particularly from the subcontinent, spend the whole day bargaining as you do in a fish market.

Unlike Indians, Americans are very polite and law abiding on the roads. In India, there is no fear of the law – everyone is either related to a politician or a policeman or at least is an acquaintance of one. In the worst case scenario, one can bribe one’s way out of most difficult situations. In America, there is fear of the law. Add to that the shoal of lawyers waiting to sue you at the slightest provocation.

One day I went with my daughter to the supermarket. In America everything is big: men and women are huge; pizzas are extra large; supermarkets are very spacious, the car park endless. I got bored of walking around inside and came out to look at the surroundings. After sitting on a bench for a while, I decided to take a stroll through the car park. I went to the pedestrian crossing and waited for a gap in the traffic as we do in India. As I put my right foot on the road, every car on either side stopped. Fearing that they would all start at any time and run over me, I decided to go back to the bench. Immediately all the cars started to move. A little later as I again put one foot on the road with the other still firmly on the pavement, all vehicles screeched to a halt. I hesitated and went back to the bench. The movement of cars started again. My daughter later told me that the cars stopped to let me cross the road. If one of the cars were to even slightly brush me that would be a golden opportunity to sue the driver and win a huge compensation! In India, drivers wait for you to cross the road so that they can run over you.

When one thinks of capitalism, the United States comes immediately to mind. But there is one area where socialism is very much evident: the domestic environment of the desi. Most of the Malayalee (+other South Indian) families in and around Ashburn come from middle and upper middle class families. Many of them have never sullied their hands back home doing manual labor. In America, they do change; in fact they are forced to change. Domestic help is at a premium. So it really amused me to see these formerly spoilt youngsters, especially the males of the species, helping in the kitchen, cleaning the house, washing the bath and toilet, doing quite a bit of gardening, and other such chores.

A couple of months into my stay at our daughter’s house, Ashna, my granddaughter was sitting beside me turning the pages of the ‘Style’ section of ‘The Washington Post’ while I was engaged in the main section. Suddenly she turned to me and asked:

“Dada, how is that my picture is not in the news?”

“Well, you must be newsworthy, or make some news.” I replied.

“One thing”, she went on, “I want to be famous and my photo should come in the newspaper.”

Then she started on one of her tantrums and insisted that her photo appears somewhere. I suddenly remembered that a couple of her photos were on my website where my blogs appear and showed them to her. She was immensely pleased. And now she wanted to know what a blog is. I spent the next twenty minutes explaining blogs. After a few minutes of deep thought, during which time I went back to reading the paper thinking that she would soon forget the whole thing, she suddenly jumps up and says:

“I also want a blog and become famous!”

The next couple of days she kept pestering me about the blog. On the third day, she brought a bundle of papers, a pencil and an eraser and made me sit at the dining table. She sat next to me and being very lazy herself, told me she would dictate and I should write down what she wanted to write on her blog!!

So I wrote, very slightly edited and typed verbatim what she dictated. I hope this is not her first and last blog. The following is the finished product.

ASHNA’S LATEST NEWS

By Ashna Maria Vayalil

Ashna wanted to be in the news for a long time. She is only six and a half years old. Ashna has a baby sister Anusha who is only 3 weeks old. She also has a cousin sister whose name is Diya. Ashna’s birthday is on October 13. When she was 4 months old she was in ‘Editor’s Choice’ and she won first prize. Sometimes she is good, at other times she is bad. She wants to have 2 sisters instead of 1. She has a nice beautiful garden. There are tomatoes, cucumbers, green chilies, strawberries, bitter gourds, curry leaves and mint leaves in the garden. We also have pine trees, jasmines, roses and other exotic plants as well in our garden.

Ashna’s house is pretty too. There are 3 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 1 library, 1 breakfast room, 1 family room, 1 living room and 1 dining room. We have 4 clocks, 1 TV, 13 windows, 25 lights, 4 closets, 3 exits, 6 sofas, 4 umbrellas – that is all in Ashna’s house.

Ashna the girl loves to dance and sing and watch TV. She also watches a program called ‘Kutties Choice’. She loves to paint and she loves to play on the computer and watch lots and lots of TV. She wish she had 56 sisters and 54 brothers and 100 cousin sisters and 1 cousin brother.

She is in grade 1. She is going to grade 2. She wishes that she is already in grade 9!! The grade 2 school is ‘Hillside Elementary’. Her old 1^st grade school was named ‘Virginia Academy’.

She really wanted to hear about herself in the news and she wanted to be famous. And now she is going to be. She has lots of pictures, almost 100 that she made. When she was already in her mommy’s tummy she wanted to be famous. She calls her mommy ‘mama’ and her dad ‘daddy’.

She loves Hindi movies and some English movies and her favorite one is ‘IQBAL’. And her favorite song in Iqbal is “Aashaye” and it goes like this:

Aashaye, hile dil ki

Ummidien hasse dil ki

Abu mushukil

Nahee Kuchbi

HoOOooOOOoooo

Aashayee………………..

Ashna will write again later.

I hope she will.